Tag Archives: experience

Post navigation

“You have no more than ninety seconds to summarize your group’s discussion.” This is one of the phrases I have uttered at least a hundred times over the years. How many exactly? My gosh, the idea of this club popped out of my head in the summer of 2011. When we first sat down in the empty room of the art gallery seven years ago, I had no vision of 15-20 member groups filling up a bar room with their voices every second week. Today, if we walk down to CDFŰ, we have our flyers all over the place, and we are considered a top priority event there. A lot of people have at least heard about us. Every season somebody walks in saying: a friend of mine recommended this club to me. Not to mention the ones who simply googled ‘English club Budapest’, and they somehow ended up here.

The quintessential TAKE FIVE equipment: name tags, mushroom lamps, colored envelopes with the topics, laminated guidelines, and last but not least, the bell.

TAKE FIVE is a dream come true – one we did not even know we had. Nevertheless, this long road has its bumps and cracks too.

In January we were compelled to assemble a crisis team to unravel the reasons behind the ridiculously low attendance. I would say it was the first time we truly hit rock bottom. In such moments in our lives, it is good to have a childhood friend around. Besides a number of minor changes we agreed to make, Zoli – who has been a faithful partner in crime since kindergarten – “raised his hand” and verbalized the very essence of our existence. His words soon became our slogan, which we had never actually had before: come for the language, stay for the company.

This moment served as a sort of turning point to me (with the string and brass sections intensifying behind my back), since throughout these years I have kept focusing on English, and hardly ever stopped for a minute to contemplate how significant the rest is. As of now I have no doubts: TAKE FIVE is primarily a social event, and as a side project we provide a place for people to practice the language.

Especially during the last two years we have begun to broaden our horizons or, shall we say, expand our comfort zone and take on new ventures. In 2016 we organized two exclusive sessions for two groups of high school students, and in the winter of 2017 we announced our first Christmas charity campaign. In the meantime, our community is becoming more and more colorful by the month. We are opening up new channels in two particular directions. First off, a remarkable number of teenagers have joined us recently, with the youngest having been 13 years old.

What is more, we are proud to have welcomed three people with autism in the past two years. This is not the right time to discuss in detail what this extraordinary condition is about. It is enough to say that if they leave this place satisfied and they are ready to come back for a second time, that is the most valuable feedback we could ever possibly receive.

It is also life-changing to witness how shy and/or introverted people come to the club, and eventually spread their wings slowly but surely. I as a teenager would have been scared to death if I had been asked to talk in front of complete strangers. This is not the case with 16-year-old Anna who, quite similarly to my 14-year-old student Ambrus, sprang to her feet and took one of the hot seats to present a summary of her group’s discussion. In the above photo, two proud teachers are looking back at her, one of them being her form teacher and my colleague at the school, Ildi. Let us pause for a second to celebrate: it was the very first time in the history of the club for a student and their form teacher to appear together.

As far as our future is concerned, we have our evil plans, and not all of them are yet to be revealed. One thing we are willing to share with you: at the end of this season we will begin to award badges to our recurring members, as a way of expressing our gratitude for their loyalty. For starters, once you have attended the 10th session, you become eligible for our silver-blue badge, and your name will appear on our site. (If you so desire, of course.) In case you have been a hardcore member in the past years, you will receive a special golden-red badge. All badges will be awarded retrospectively too.

Over the course of seven years we have built up something amazing, which we could not have done without your support. We have our own format for the sessions, we have rituals, we have inside jokes, we have online forums, we have a reputation, but most importantly: we have a lovely and accepting community of enthusiastic people who either join us to brush up on their English, or join us to socialize, to make new friends. We can only hope that most of you come for both.

Ah, how soon the summer goes by. You just blink one – because the darned sweat got into your eyes – and another one (damned blinding sunlight, I can’t open my eyelids, my pupils will disappear) and it’s gone. But don’t worry, TAKE FIVE will resume soon on the 22nd of September! Don’t forget, it will be a special occasion:

our 5th birthday!

The name of the club is TAKE FIVE, so you can imagine what the fuss is about. There will be a special topic and everything. And speaking of topics: the Topic Hat is about to run out, so we look to you to help us! If you have an idea, don’t hesitate to send it to one of the organisers.
Until then, you have a choice: you can read the brief summer summary, or if you have the time, why not read the longer, creative writing approach featuring the dystopian apocalyptic future.

So, for the short summary:
The summer went pretty well. After serious consideration and evaluating several options, we chose to have the first occasion in Muzikum. We had no idea that we would like the place so much that all of the summer sessions would be there. But we did and it was a good choice. We always had a summer themed game: a whacky summertime invention, a summertime cocktail or a summertime photo album that the members had to act out. Also, the organisers got in touch with their musical side, and after rewriting the lyrics to Walk Off the Earth’s Little Boxes, they performed the new version of the song titled Little Mushrooms. Towards the end most people must have been on holiday, as there were a bit fewer people than before. But that was never a problem, and we had fun nonetheless. All in all, it was a good summer to look back on, and now it’s time to look forward to the autumn (or fall for those who prefer US English) season. See you then!

(you can read the creative writing summary below the pictures)

The FALL of mankind

The days of the scorch are gone. We get a few afterburns every now and then, but that’s about it. The long haul to the everlasting winter and soulless cold has begun. Say what you want about heat, but at least it has a soul. It lives, pulsates around you, and like most living things, it can kill you. But I’d rather die at the hands of something that at least gives the impression of life rather than just a passive destructive force, like cold. It’s not even destructive… it just forces out all life. Like darkness, it creeps up, non-threatening at first, but then you find yourself cornered into a small hole, and you know it’s gonna be over soon. Best you can do is hope, but all you can do is fend off insanity. Well, some can do it, anyway. Not all of us. But now’s not the time to reminisce. Now’s the time to try and do whatever we can. For whatever reason you can tell yourself. Tell it hard enough, you might just believe it.

We rounded up whomever we could find. As the deserts started freezing over, it became easier. Those that survived came looking our way. Of course we can’t stay long in one place – I can already feel the ground here getting colder and colder each morning. All life shrivelling up, becoming a frozen memento of what it once was. Soon that would be us. Unless we come up with something. If there is anything to come up with.

I was tasked with gathering information. Whatever information I could get my hands on: art, manuals, a kid’s drawing on a freakin’ fridge, a flyer for some club. I got some good stuff over the time. It isn’t much, but then again, my whole mission is crazy. It is meant to guide those that will come after us. The future generations, maybe the ones born during the fall, perhaps even children of the winter. You never know when you might visit for the first time. You never know how long you might stay.

This one thing I found, it’s really interesting. Reminds me of a world I used to know. Used to be home. It used to be warm there. It’s just a flyer, nothing fancy. Colourful background, mainly orange. It’s an out of focus picture of people sitting around a table, talking. Having a good time. Once there was writing in the foreground, but the powerful rays of the sun have seen to it that it become faded. All you can make out now are ‘IAK IV’. Although some say the first letter is a ‘T’. Whatever it is, it used to be a language club. During the days of the scorch it was quite popular.

I went down to the archives to find out more about this club. It was pretty much the same until, a few months ago, the name ‘Muzikum’ started popping up. Quite a few people visited the club. Their first meeting there went good enough. That place is pretty good. Dear Lord, back in those days you could go outside without protective gear. They must have enjoyed the sunlight and the warm. Letting it shine over them, heat their skin, fill them with energy. Like a loving caress. A warm hand running over you, yet untouchable. Before it became a strangling, burning grip… This club must have been doing something right. The second time they were at this new place they had even more visitors. I can’t tell much from these pictures, but it seems like they were acting out an imaginary holiday in three frames. Seems like fun. The organisers even rewrote the lyrics to a song and performed it. They also took imaginary trips to alternative universes, like a fairy tale or a superhero universe. How sweet. How innocent. Neither of those words mean much anymore.

Summer was a privilege back then, a time to rejoice and welcome the life it brought. We never thought we could have too much of it. After a while the sessions got homelier with less visitors, as if people were on holiday or something. Still, the club carried on and it looks like good fun. Sometimes they were inside, sometimes they could go outside. Their games are clearly of an era of hope. They always had something related to summer – a summertime cocktail, a summertime invention, summertime this, summertime that. I cringe from the phantom heat burning me just by reading about these.
Well, seems like this club had a good run. They say as the cold came, they moved underground. I suppose that’s as good an idea as any. Who knows, it might even make a difference. They might even carry on, keep humanity together with their English speaking and fun games.

I sometimes think that we won’t make it. More often than not, to be honest. I should be keeping hope alive, but… I don’t know. I don’t know if we can survive on the surface. It will become cold and unwelcoming. The rigid, uncompromising cold will take over, step by step, degree by degree. Those that are not frozen will have to endure for as long as they might, watching their breath billow away from them only to disappear in the chilly air. Just a puff of air, an ominous harbinger of what is to come. Of what will happen to all of us. Snuffed out by the cold, withering and alone, drained of all energy. At least in this club you wouldn’t be alone. If the cold’s about to get you, you may as well have fun and spend your time with a bunch of cool people. I guess that’s better.

I think I’ll go to this ‘IAK IV’ club or ‘TAK IV’ or whatever it was originally called. I need to have a look to see what would I find. If they are still there. Who knows, we may even see the sun again. But at least we’ll be together, no matter what.

On 19 May the TAKE FIVE club passed another milestone on the freeway of its five-year history. We had the immense pleasure and honor of welcoming 10 first-year secondary school students to an extraordinary one-off session. In collaboration with their English teacher we paddled into uncharted waters to discover and embrace a long-dormant possibility of our club.

“Hi there, Take Five organizers! I’m Svoboda Róbert, English teacher from Budapest. Balázs knows me…” That’s how it all began. We agreed that a regular session would be deep water for the students with all the strangers (not to mention the psychological trauma Balázs is likely to cause with his mere appearance), so we put our heads together and decided to organize a one-time special event, elegantly squeezed in between two scheduled meetings. Our goal was to keep the original, academically acclaimed and at the same time world famous TAKE FIVE format, but adjust everything to the proficiency level and age group.

One speaker from each group summarized their discussion in a few sentences. On the tables you can see our newly-acquired mushrooms that the groups can turn on once they finish.

Robi was brave enough to join one of the preceding events to sit down with us and help us lay down the foundations. In harmonious cooperation we imposed our brilliant ideas on him, which he tacitly and respectfully accepted. Our final plans included an ice-breaker, three of the topics we had already used at the club, and two amusing picture-based creative writing tasks. The session lasted for two hours with a ten-minute break.

Despite the fact that I am quite used to being surrounded by ladies, I was preparing for the event with a more or less healthy gender ratio in my mind. If you take a brief look at any of the photos, you may see how close I got. I think I will never be able to write down in a public blog how terrified I felt when I saw ten teenage girls walk into the club in a straight line. They all settled down and we dived right into the introduction part. One of our most favorite ice-breakers is a game called alphabet, in which we scatter the letters of the alphabet all over the floor. Then we ask questions and everyone has to find the starting letter of their answers. The girls became pretty excited upon hearing the questions “What’s your favorite band/singer?” and “What’s your favorite TV show?”. I turned out to be the only one who was having trouble coming up with answers and finding the letters.

Robi was giving us a helping hand.

Our lovely guests began to feel more and more comfortable as time passed. I would probably have burst out crying and/or run away if I had been taken to a club like this in the first year of secondary school. But to my astonishment, these girls made themselves feel at home by the end. They were ready to volunteer when it came to summarizing the topics, the room was often filled with laughter, and – as far as I could see – they did enjoy most of what we had prepared with. The session was concluded with a round of applause and a volley of thank-yous.

As the founder of the TAKE FIVE club and as an English teacher, I can confirm that this exceptional occasion was nothing but the first step. From now on we are looking forward to working together with other schools as well to provide more and more students with a genuine English-speaking setting where they have a chance to put theory into practice.

Another rainy night in New York. Another TAKE FIVE meeting in Budapest. As the cigarette smoke cleared I knew it would be our Christmasest evening yet. I was a hot detective working a cold case, but the weather was mild and I knew I had long passed my best shape. Still, it was a holiday club meeting and someone had to do the speaking. And if that someone is going to be someone, then that someone is going to be me. With heart full of determination and Era by my side I knew I might just get it done. Or at least give it my damnedest.

The evening began. At first there weren’t many of them there, but I knew better. I knew that this was always the way, and I wasn’t taken in quite so easily. Oh no, not anymore. Not after my heart was broken in Cairo, when I was still young and I thought I could handle an English Club without any bells. Well, not this time. I came prepared. As I rose from my seat they might have expected me to clear my throat, or to even use the regular bell. They had no clue what the night had in store for them. I wasn’t going to beat around the bush anymore; I took out my phone and rang the special Christmas bell application I downloaded earlier. The effect was exactly as I expected – mild amusement with hearty smiles all around. I knew instantly that this would be a good night to be a Take Fiver.

I felt like having a double whisky and a sad tune on the piano, but I got a pot of tea instead. The bell was a nice touch, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it go into my head. The night was still early and I needed my English at its best. While we waited for the others I thought of playing word chain with a Christmas and winter theme, and I wasn’t wrong. We didn’t always keep to the theme, but hell, who does. People kept arriving, and we were shaping up to be quite a group. It was time for the introductory question and I thought to myself what the hell, I’ll ask them. And they can tell us whatever they want to. So I looked right at them, and with a smile twitching at the edge of my mouth I posed the question straight off: ’So, what do you want for Christmas?’

I could see I hit the spot; they laughed a bit and I could see them trying to come up with a witty answer. I gave them a few minutes and then told them to get to it: tell us their name and gift idea. We all spoke and had a few laughs. Some of the ideas weren’t all that bad, and in the dimmed lights you could see that they were enjoying this make-believe Take Five Santa. All those Take Fivers, eager to get on with it. What a bunch. I knew I couldn’t make them wait any longer. It was topics or nothing, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them down. Not after they came all the way down here. And not at the last meeting of the season. I was the last to answer, and after that I let Zsombor do his thing. He’s got a way with the envelopes, you see, and he is pretty good with the crowd, too. He seemed to be in his element – he even read out the topic.

The first one was a real doozy: Grammar Nazis. It was a club member topic and a fine one at that. But it seems that fate had all the cards and there was no pass at the checker’s table. As we drew another topic, it started to get suspicious. It was also Noémi’s. That’s TAKE FIVE for you. The discussion went fine, and the speakers really gave it their best. The second topic, that Global Citizenship thing, even sparked a bit of debate, but nothing serious. It seemed everyone had something to say about it, which is nice – we are a conversation club, after all. It was time for the break and I went to the bar to get a beer. It was a long day and a cold one was in order.

It took two seconds for the break to be over, or at least it felt that way. I could hardly get a head start on my beer and already I was faced with a crowd ready to play some of our trademark games. Well, Era, Zsombor, and I came prepared, so we didn’t worry. We had something really special up our sleeves. God, we felt invincible. Even if you’ve been around language clubs as long as we have, it still gets in your head. Like a goddamn rookie after their first introductory speech.

Zsombor had an idea for the first game. As if the night wasn’t thrilling enough, he decided to add another mystery to the table, and had the members solve the story of the sock in the metro. Few people know this, but this used to be an actual case of Zsombor’s. The man’s got an obsession, but who am I to judge him. There are worst things to get riled up about, I guess. The group had no idea about all this and they went merrily about coming up with a story. That’s what being a private eye is, that’s what it comes down to. Telling stories. Hoping they are true. Sometimes desperately needing them not to be.

The groups managed to get us smiling with their crazy ideas. And there was still plenty of crazy to go around. The second round saw to that – we asked them to come up with goofy ways of giving gifts. I knew this woman once. Her idea of a gift was knife in your back, a broken heart to go with it. But these Take Fivers deserve better, and again, they made us laugh. God, you’ve gotta like these people. But the main event was yet to come. Taboo has always been a well-known TAKE FIVE game, but this time regular Taboo wouldn’t do. We knew that, we weren’t born yesterday. That’s why we said to hell with it, we’ll make our own Christmas Taboo. And damn, did we do it.

Not all of us could play, but I didn’t mind. When you’ve played as much Taboo as I have, you can’t look at the world in the same way. Some say it’s a gift, but I don’t know about that. We had just enough cards for Era to join. Zsombor measured the time and I was to investigate. Pretty ironic. Me, a private eye spending day after day looking into people’s dirt, just idly walking up and down seeing if anyone uses the forbidden words on the cards. Kind of fitting I guess. At least this time no-one would get hurt if I find something. The game was a rousing success, and we had shared winners: Regina and Noémi. It was nice to see someone win for a change. In my line of work people usually lose and they usually lose big.

We wished everyone a Merry Christmas and with that the last TAKE FIVE of 2015 was over. I knew we would see each other again in February, but I felt depressed all the same. So I did what I do best: I finished my beer, turned my collar up, and wandered out into the night.

Three days ago the club came to life with a loud and chaotic opening session. No less than 13 people attended the first meeting of the season, which is quite encouraging and startling at the same time. When we moved to this fantastic bar last year, we started off in the smallest possible room. One year passed and we ended up in the backmost room where all these people could sit around a long table comfortably.

What if the number of visitors keeps rising? We have already hired a bunch of highly skilled economists and mathematicians to calculate probable outcomes of this tendency. It’s not that we dislike the increasing popularity of our club, but – and now comes the serious part – if we go on like this, we will have to consider making changes to the agenda to make it fit a generally bigger group of visitors. We will see.

This time we did not yet have any topics prepared. The plan was to sit down together and discuss recommendations. All thirteen people introduced themselves in two and a half sentences for the sake of the newcomers. (Balázs either said twenty sentences or used lots of commas.) We also played a brief catch-up game in which everyone had to tell us about one of their best and one of their worst experiences from the past two months.

From the next session onwards the one and only, the original, the genuine, the peculiar TAKE FIVE routine will keep the discussion on track with the usual warm-up questions, the colored envelopes, and the ever-amusing games. Keep in mind that we gladly take your recommendations both regarding the topics and the games. Feel free to harrass us on Facebook. See you on February 26!

Special thanks to Kla for the photos! Check out her photography, and our Facebook for a few more photos from Thursday.

The ever-spirited club organizers are ubiquitously known to take initiatives. This summer the luscious fruit of their hard work appeared in the form of an extraordinary extracurricular event.

We put our heads together and decided to throw a party, or to be more precise, arrange a two-day English course for the first weekend of August. We set the goal of giving our students a boost with a substantial amount of English, and letting them explore new dimensions of language learning besides the usual one-to-one lessons.

The groups are working hard to find definitions for phrasal verbs.

The attendees were divided into two groups: A2 (elementary) and B2 (intermediate). We began both days with refreshing icebreaker games. Then came a somewhat condensed grammar section to revise tenses or the correct use of articles, among other things. Finally, we made a smooth transition into more pleasant and playful tasks, such as listening to well-known songs to find some missing words in the lyrics.

Although this was our first attempt ever at organizing a course (at least the three of us together), we received almost only positive responses. Our students seemed to enjoy most of the tasks; some of them were outstandingly popular. By the end of day one we already knew this wasn’t going to be a one-off opportunity. We are planning to return with a second course in the winter, around the beginning of December, so that anyone who missed it or becomes interested can participate.

Chances are that this is just the beginning of a never-ending journey, as we have toyed with the idea of a one-day long C1 (advanced) level course, too.

We have assembled an exhaustive photo collection in which you can find pictures of each and every task with a short description. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and get ready for the fall season of the TAKE FIVE club with a few changes and new games!

Alphabet (icebreaker) – We scattered the letters of the alphabet all over the floor. In each round, one question was asked and everyone had to find the first letter of his/her answer.

Placement test before making the two groups

Recipe Card Mix-up (Icebreaker) – Each person answered five questions on a card, then the cards were shuffled and redealt to the players. Everyone had to read out the card in his hand and find the person it belonged to.

We collected as many new words as possible on both days and reused them in different tasks.

A bit of grammar

Fanni is explaining the Past Perfect to the enthusiastic students.

Sentence Pyramid – The groups had to translate the sentences from Hungarian into English in a way that the given sentence contained a certain number of words.

Zsombor is working on the sentences with the A2 group.

Fanni is orderin… doing the pyramid with the B2 group.

Luca is telling a story she has prepared for during a break.

Chopped-up text – the groups got texts that were cut into pieces. They had to solve the puzzle.

The B2 group is struggling with a tricky story.

Story Cubes – The players roll 9 dice that have pictures on them, and then improvise a coherent story starting with “Once upon a time…”.

The B2 group had to incorporate the previously collected words into their stories.

They are presenting their first story.

The dice of the A2 group

Day two; warming up with some music – We listened to 5 short pieces of instrumental music of totally different genres. Everyone had to respond to the music by answering questions like “Where are you?”, “Who are you with?”, “What are you doing?”

Fanni is preparing a vocabulary exercise for the students.

Time and place prepositions – fill in the gaps.

Phrasal verbs – Find a definition for every phrasal verb, and then fill in the gaps with them.

The long-awaited moment: LUNCH BREAK.

Another round of Sentence Pyramid – The same task, but the other way around. We started with a one-word sentence and added one word in each round.

Whodunnit – Each group got an envelope with the testimonies of five suspects. They had to find the murderer among the suspects. The task was written entirely by Zsombor.

Enikő is reading one of the testimonies.

Like in a movie – the detectives are working on the case.

Zsombor is waiting for the A2 group to come up with their suspects.

The case has been closed, the detectives can have a rest.

Listening task – On both days we listened to well-known songs. Each group got sheets for each song with gaps to fill in.

Balázs and Zsombor are reading out a short scene. The students had to listen carefully and summarize the scenes. The sheets were passed around so that everyone could ask their questions. The scenes were written by Zsombor.

We used the white board to put down unknown words or phrases.

The very last task was to take part in spontaneous everyday situations. Balázs read out each situation and the students had to come up with a response.

We have gone on vacation, but life never stops outside the club. The organizers are planning to hold a great meeting in July to discuss the future of the club. You can expect a few significant changes from September, all aiming at making the club better than ever. We will also decide on the fate of your financial contributions. If you have liked our Facebook page, you will be notified about the latest news.

As a way of expressing my gratitude towards our devoted attendees, I came up with the idea of assembling a virtual audio CD that contains about 20 tracks. Each of our most frequent visitors has contributed to the playlist with two of their favorite songs, mostly of genres that could serve as background music for the meetings. If you seek to unwind at the end of an exhausting day, or simply want to get a glimpse of the genuine TAKE FIVE atmosphere, this exceptionally eclectic album is the best choice for you. Click on the cover below:

Here is the full tracklist. You can click on the individual tracks to find out about a specific takefiver’s musical taste. Enjoy!

Post navigation

Welcome to our site!

TAKE FIVE is a conversation club that gives you the opportunity to refresh, practice and improve your English every second week in the heart of Budapest. Spend three hours in the best possible atmosphere, where language development and entertainment are in perfect balance. Don't hesitate to join us!